What could you live without?

    Due dates at a specific time that isn’t 11:59 that day is definitely something I could live without. I’ve always heard the argument from teachers that a later due date incentivizes students to stay up later. I don’t know if this is true for others, but a blog post being due two hours earlier isn’t going to be the thing that stops me from going to bed really late. 

    Sure maybe for some super-mega procrastinators who really just can’t control themselves, a due date at 10 PM might be the extra bit of stress needed to get themselves motivated to write an essay before they normally go to sleep. But for me, the optimal human on this planet, I’ve already basically decided when I’m going to go to bed. I decide how much of my sanity the next day I am willing to sacrifice to get those precious extra hours of free time. I will not be disclosing that time, but it hasn’t changed in something going on 4 years minimum depending on how you count, so if you really need to know, ask someone I talk to a lot, they probably know. 

    A 10 PM due date isn’t " oh I guess I’m going to bed earlier today” it’s “I guess I’m going to rebalance my night to do homework earlier”. The earlier due date actually causes more stress as if I start dozing off for an evening nap (possibly as a consequence of my own actions, we’ll never know) I suddenly have to put myself under a massive time crunch to get the assignment done so I can start napping again. Such a situation may or may not be happening, where I returned home, got in my bed to start working, and then immediately fell asleep, only to luckily be woken up by my mom before a situation where I slept until 8 PM and woke up to a very short window of time where I could write the blog.

    Now, is this lifestyle I am speaking of exactly… healthy? No. But it’s how I live and this essay is ultimately about my opinions, so you should probably not interrupt. As both a longtime procrastinator and a late night sleeper I have an interesting insight into teacher attempts to tyrannically suppress my lifestyle among the student body. I can say with confidence from my own experiences that such methods have not been effective in curbing my night owl tendencies. I do however concede that such measures may be put into place for those who are procrastinators,  early sleepers, but not someone who values their sleep highly, it may be possible that a late due time would incentivize them to decide to stay up longer than they initially intended. In this case I guess I can sympathize with the teachers for trying to prevent this. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be loudly complaining about it because it impacts my odd, rare, and unhealthy lifestyle in a negative way. 

    All together I hope that you, the reader, can now agree with me that we should sacrifice the weak so I don’t have to be inconvenienced by actually doing my homework when normal people do it. On the one hand teachers implementing early due may have a positive effect on the student body, I wouldn’t know. But the essay prompt specifically asks what I could live without, not what would be best for our society, or the nebulous idea of “getting enough sleep”.

Comments

  1. WilliamOctober 15, 2023 at 8:36 AM

    While I would disagree that you are the most optimized human on the earth, I still agree with your point. I often find that, while I submit my school assignments early, the time after gets eaten up by other thins I have to do (college) and I end up with the same poor sleep habits. Your essay is already good, but I think you could perhaps include a little more reflection on solutions to the issue of students staying up late: will we always have poor sleeping habits? What other solutions can teachers, parents, etc. implement to help students out? You get the idea.

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  2. MaggieOctober 18, 2023 at 2:32 PM

    I find this very relatable, especially the afternoon nap bit. I think you do a good job looking at early deadlines with your own perspective and perspectives of teachers. Right now I'm assuming one thing your mentioning that has an early deadline are english blogs. You could add more to make it more clear or add some kind of example just for context. Just a small detail though.

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  3. Yelim KimOctober 18, 2023 at 7:42 PM

    Nice post. Your tone is conversational and authentic, and you do a good job of showing your thought process (aka the "habit of thought" style from the rubric). I also like how you include the viewpoint of people who might benefit from the earlier deadlines. I think you could add another sentence at the end to make it more conclusive--perhaps here is where you could include some of the ideas William suggested?

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